The unconventional career of Dr Muriel Bell / Diana Brown.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brown, Diana, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nutritionists--New Zealand--Biography.

Nutritionists.

Women scientists--New Zealand--Biography.

Women scientists.

Bell, Muriel E. (Muriel Emma), 1898-1974.

Bell, Muriel E.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (184 pages, xii pages of plates) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Dunedin, New Zealand : Otago University Press, 2019.

Summary:

Whether or not you have heard of pioneering nutritionist Muriel Bell, she has had a profound effect on your health. Appointed New Zealand's first state nutritionist in 1940, a position she held for almost a quarter-century, Muriel Bell was behind ground-breaking public health schemes such as milk in schools, iodised salt and water fluoridation. As a lecturer in physiology from 1923 to 1927, she had been one of the first women academics at Otago Medical School. The second woman in New Zealand to be awarded the research degree of Doctor of Medicine (MD), in 1926, her subsequent pioneering research on vitamins and minerals helped to prevent deficiency diseases, and later, optimise health. Bell's early research into fats and cholesterol tackled the complexity of nutrition- related aspects of coronary heart disease.At the base of her commitment to science lay a deep social concern, especially for women and children. In service to this cause Muriel Bell worked tirelessly. Her nutritional advice - common sense to us today but revolutionary at the time - was to eat more fruit, vegetables, wholegrains and milk products and to cut down on sugar, fat and meat. In 1937 she became a foundation member of the Medical Research Council, serving for two decades while simultaneously she was the sole woman on the Board of Health. Muriel Bell was a trailblazer by anyone's definition, unswervingly committed to the understanding that 'we are what we eat'; that nutrition is a cornerstone of individual and public health. Diana Brown tells the story of this extraordinary woman in this long-overdue biography.--Publisher information.

Contents:

Front Cover

Title Page

Half Title

Copyright

Contents

Introduction: A life in nutrition research

1. A Pioneering Spirit

2. Medicine as a Career Path

3. Research: In pursuit of knowledge

4. Knowing by Instinct

5. Gaining Ground in New Zealand after the Depression

6. State Nutritionist during World War II

7. Driving Dietary Changes Forward

8. Affluence and Fragmenting Priorities in the 1950s

9. 'Battle-Axe Bell': The fight for fluoridation

10. The Final Struggle

Notes

Index.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781988592190

1988592194

9781988592176

1988592178